PANAJI
Three days ahead of the three months old gruesome murder of assistant professor Gauri Achari, the Old Goa police has filed a charge sheet against accused Gaurav Bidre before the District & Sessions Court.
Goa Police’s former fitness trainer Bidre is charged under sections 302 for murder, 365 (kidnapping or abduction of a person with the intent to be kept secretly and wrongfully confined), 342 (wrongful confinement), and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code.
The 303-page charge sheet has 49 witnesses’ statements besides evidence collection from the crime scene and confession of the accused, who is serving judicial custody in Colvale Jail. The Old Goa police are likely to incorporate additional evidence in a supplementary charge sheet expected soon.
In a spine-chilling murder that was a result of unrequited love, Bidre (36) strangled Achari (35) on June 23 and dumped her body in a jungle in Old Goa. The accused and the victim became friends after she hired him as a personal fitness trainer. She however did not wish to continue with him any longer, a confession that angered the celebrity trainer.
On a fateful evening, Bidre accosted Achari in her car as she was parking near her rented apartment in Corlim where she lived with her mother. The accused strangled her inside the vehicle, drove the car out of her residential area and then moved her body to his car before driving about 2 km from his residence and dumping the body in a forested area near the Kadamba Bypass.
After the victim did not return home that evening, her mother complained to the police claiming that her daughter had been abducted. The search for Achari led the police to Bidre who confessed to killing his female friend in a gruesome act that shocked the State. Her body was recovered at the instance of the arrested man.
The accused, who was on bail in a molestation case in Maharashtra, had conducted a month-long fitness training for the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Goa Police prior to the incident.
